hUMA has come with a weapon to slay the memory latency dragon

Subject: General Tech | April 30, 2013 - 01:23 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: Steamroller, piledriver, Kaveri, Kabini, hUMA, hsa, GCN, bulldozer, APU, amd

AMD may have united GPU and CPU into the APU but one hurdle had remained until now, the the non-uniformity of memory access between the two processors.  Today we learned about one of the first successful HAS projects called Heterogeneous Uniform Memory Access, aka hUMA, which will appear in the upcoming Kaveri chip family.   The use of this new technology will allow the on-die CPU and GPU to access the same memory pool, both physical and virtual and any data passed between the two processors will remain coherent.  As The Tech Report mentions in their overview hUMA will not provide as much of a benefit to discrete GPUs, while they will be able to share address space the widely differing clock speeds between GDDR5 and DDR3 prevent unification to the level of an APU.

Make sure to read Josh's take as well so you can keep up with him on the Podcast.

"At the Fusion Developer Summit last June, AMD CTO Mark Papermaster teased Kaveri, AMD's next-generation APU due later this year. Among other things, Papermaster revealed that Kaveri will be based on the Steamroller architecture and that it will be the first AMD APU with fully shared memory.

Last week, AMD shed some more light on Kaveri's uniform memory architecture, which now has a snazzy marketing name: heterogeneous uniform memory access, or hUMA for short."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• AMD’s new heterogeneous Uniform Memory Access
• hUMA; AMD’s Heterogeneous Unified Memory Architecture @ Hardware Canucks
• Compro TN50W Cloud Network Camera @ Tweaktown
• Wifi Pineapple project uses updated hardware for man-in-the-middle attacks @ Hack a Day
• New OpenWRT Drops Support For Linux 2.4, Low-Mem Devices @ Slashdot
• HP mashes up ProLiant, Integrity, BladeSystem, and Moonshot server @ The Register
• Acer selling tablet using Intel Y series processor @ The Register
• CERN Celebrates 20 Years of an Open Web (and Rebuilds 1st Web Page) @ Slashdot
• BitFenix 5K YouTube Subscriber Giveaway @ eTeknix

New Ubuntu 13.04 Release Upgrades Unity, Ditches Wubi, and Updates Applications

Subject: General Tech | April 30, 2013 - 12:57 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: wubi, Unity, ubuntu 13.04, ubuntu, openstack, linux, canonical

Canonical released its the Ubuntu 13.04 “Raring Ringtail” Linux distribution earlier this week. The updated operating system incorporates a new Linux kernel, newer pre-installed applications, and a tweaked Unity desktop environment. Enterprise and server users also have updated server software stacks to look forward to, including the latest juju and OpenStack (Grizzly) releases.

Ubuntu 13.04 continues in the direction of convergence set in motion by Canonical and its founder Mark Shuttleworth. It is the first step towards Ubuntu running on many types of devices (including mobile) as it includes an updated Unity interface. The 13.04 release still uses the X window system, but Canonical has made tweaks to Unity and is offering up an optional download of the new Mir display backend that users can install. Mir is the display server that Ubuntu will be switching to with its next LTS release and that will reportedly enable a cross-platform Ubuntu/Unity experience. The Unity tweaks include disabling Workspaces and the “show desktop” button on the desktop (though they can be re-enabled in settings). There have also been tweaks to Ubuntu’s Dash UI, including a typo-tolerant search function and new result sorting options. It will not be until the next release that users will really start to see Ubuntu’s plans of convergence come together (heh), but even with the small changes present in 13.04, the traditional desktop OS is making considerations for mobile devices.

While the visual changes are minimal on Ubuntu 13.04 compared to 12.10, the new release does update a lot of the underlying software.At least on the outside, Ubuntu 13.04 has not changed much from its 12.10 predecessor. Ubuntu 13.04 is based on the upstream 3.8.8 Linux kernel, and incorporates a number of updates to the pre-installed applications and core software. The updates include Unity 7, LibreOffice 4, and Python 3.3 (future versions of Ubuntu will remove Python 2 completely, though it will still be available as a downloadable package). Gwibber has also been replaced with a new service called “Friends” that takes all of your social networking accounts and combines them under your Ubuntu Online account.

Additionally, Ubuntu 13.04 also no longer includes the Wubi installer, which allowed users to install Ubuntu as a program within Windows and got around the need to mess with partitioning. Although there was a bit of overhead in doing the install this way, it was noticeably easier for new users than other methods. Canonical suggests that users interested in trying out the new operating system should simply use the live media, but installing it in a VM such as VirtualBox or VMWare may be more appropriate as some of the functionality is missing from the Live DVD environment in my experience (at least if you also want to try out functionality or other Linux software that would require a restart). Canonical has also cut the support time in half for Ubuntu 13.04 (and all future interim releases) from 18 months to 9 months. Hopefully the development team puts the reduced support workload to good use by investing the time in quick and stable releases.

So far, Ubuntu 13.04 has been getting positive reviews, though some users have run into issues running the operating system on their particular hardware (a bit of instability is expected with a new release, however).

If you are interested in Ubuntu 13.04 “Raring Ringtail,” you can read more about the changes in the official release notes and grab a download of the OS from the Ubuntu website or the updater if you are currently running Ubuntu 12.10.

Deal for April 30th - Dell UltraSharp U2711 27" 2560 x 1440 @ $630

Subject: General Tech | April 30, 2013 - 11:48 AM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: deals

Only slightly less impressive than the flagship 30" model and significantly cheaper, though not as cheap as Ken's favourite Korean monitors, the deal for today is the 27" Dell UltraSharp U2711.  You still get the high resolution and variety of inputs including HDMI 1.3, DisplayPort, two DVI, Component and Composite along with USB connectivity.  As it is an IPS display it will function well as a professional display and the response is fast enough to serve a gamer as well.

Dell UltraSharp U2711 27" 2560 x 1440 LCD Monitor
Dell Home is offering 27-inch UltraSharp U2711 LCD Monitor for $629.99 plus FREE shipping. Use $299.01 instant savings and extra 10% coupon code: ?K0N8$SDH1ZF0P to get final price.

New Linux Kernel 3.9 Adds New Features Including KVM on ARM and SSD Caching Support

Subject: General Tech | April 30, 2013 - 09:46 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: ssd caching, operating system, linux, kernel 3.9, kernel, arm, 802.11ac

Linus Torvalds recently released a new version of the Linux kernel -- version 3.9 -- that advances the core of the GNU/Linux operating system with a number of new features. Among other tweaks, the new kernel rolls in new drivers, improves virtualization support, adds new hardware sleep modes, and tweaks file system and storage support.

The new kernel has added quite a few new experimental features, but developers/enthusiasts will no longer have to employ the CONFIG_EXPERIMENTAL flag when compiling the kernel in order to enable them. The kernel development team has decided to remove that option, enable the features by default, and merely tag those experimental features in the documentation. One of the experimental features is SSD caching that allows a solid state drive to cache both reads and writes. The SSD can cache frequently accessed data on the faster solid state drive as well as take the write cached data and write it to the hard drive when the IO subsystem isn’t being heavily utilized. The feature is not new to Linux distributions, but the caching support has now been moved to the kernel. Furthermore, the kernel is now RAID-aware when using the btrfs file system and RAID 5 or RAID 6.

On the driver front, Linux Kernel 3.9 now supports Intel’s upcoming 802.11ac Wi-Fi adapters, improved HD audio codec, AMD’s Oland (8500/8600) and Richland GPUs, and additional NVIDIA GPU support. The new kernel also rolls in a power-optimized driver for Intel’s Haswell GPU and several more track pads.

Kernel 3.9 also adds a new suspend/sleep mode. It will use more power than the traditional S3 (suspend to memory) sleep mode because components are not completely powered down (merely at their lowest sleep mode), but the system will be almost-instantly accessible upon exiting the new suspend mode as a result. According to H-Online, this "lightweight suspend" mode would be ideal for mobile devices or hardware used in network appliances. Also interesting is support for a KVM hypervisor on ARM Cortex A15 SoCs as well as some software tweaks to the kernel to improve web server workloads by allowing multiple networking sockets (and associated CPU processes) to listen on the same network port.

In all, version 3.9 looks to be a worthy upgrade, and one that I hope Linux distro makers will opt for in upcoming releases. I think the new drivers and the SSD caching being rolled into the kernel are the most important features for desktop users, though the networking stack improvements also sound interesting.

For more details, Thorsten Leemhuis has written up an extensive article on the new kernel.

Can you go too far with a gaming mouse? The Shogun Bros Ballista MK-1 Pro

Subject: General Tech | April 29, 2013 - 06:48 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: Shogun Brothers Ballista MK-1 Pro, input, gaming mouse

Gaming mice continue to evolve as the market has become saturated, with companies striving to stand out in the crowd but Shogun Brothers may have taken this a bit far.  While having 8200 DPI and 12000 FPS is impressive, being able to set the X and Y sensitivity separately seems excessive.  The ability to save five different profiles for button programming is impressive but when the mouse is capable of displaying the name of that profile you have perhaps reached a new level altogether.  Perhaps the most telling is that the mouse is clearly labelled with a warning not to even attempt to use the mouse without reading the instructions first.  However, if this sounds like the mouse of your dreams, head to eTeknix to see this mouse in action.

"For the last couple of days I have been spending my evening gaming and putting the Ballista MK-1 gaming mouse from Shogun Bros through its paces. Until a few weeks ago I had never even heard of Shogun Bros and give that the gaming peripheral is somewhat dominated by a few big brands it can be hard for another name to squeeze through. Yet a quick look online has shown that products like the Ballista and other products from Shogun Bros have been getting a lot of attention and a lot of love from both review media and the gaming community, so what is all the fuss about?"

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• Steelseries World of Warcraft Wireless MMO Gaming Mouse @ eTeknix
• Func MS-3 Gaming Mouse @ Benchmark Reviews
• Logitech G100s Gaming Mouse Review @ Techgage
• ROCCAT LUA Tri-Button Gaming Mouse Review @ NikKTech
• Roccat Kone Pure Limited Edition Mouse @ eTeknix
• Tt eSPORTS MEKA G Unit Mechanical Gaming Keyboard @ eTeknix
• AZiO KB577U Levetron MECH5 Gaming Keyboard @ Benchmark Reviews
• CM Storm Quickfire TK Mechanical Keyboard @ Benchmark Reviews
• SteelSeries Apex [RAW] Gaming Keyboard Review @ Hardware Secrets
• Rosewill RK-9100 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard @ techPowerUp
• ROCCAT Isku FX Gaming Keyboard Review @ Neoseeker
• Gigabyte Aivia Osmium (MX Brown) Gaming Keyboard Review @ Hardware Secrets
• Logitech G510s @ LanOC Reviews

Can you spare $14K for a curvaceous LCD?

Subject: General Tech | April 29, 2013 - 04:38 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: LG, curved lcd

You thought 72"+ HD panels and 4K TVs were expensive?  Wait until you get a load of the price tag attached to the first curved OLED displays which will hit the market in South Korea for a mere $13,569; each.  At just 4.3mm thick and 17lbs they won't be hard to position in your home, if you can afford the asking price of one, let alone the three you would need to get proper multi-monitor performance.  The Inquirer begged for an official release date and price for the UK and were disappointed as are those in North America who have been waiting for these for several years now.

"SOUTH KOREAN ELECTRONICS FIRM LG has announced that it will launch the world's first curved OLED TV this summer, pipping rival Samsung to the post to take the lead in OLED technology."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• Chromebook hack controls your television @ Hack a Day
• McAfee discovers Adobe Reader security flaw @ The Inquirer
• The NVIDIA Control Panel Memory Leak Problem @ TechARP
• Online Hitchhiker's Guide Thriving @ Slashdot
• Lenovo deal to buy IBM x86 server biz moving along fast @ The Register
• Video footage from inside AMD boardroom meeting @ Kitguru
• Spring Storm Preparedness - A Look At Energizer & Maglite LED Flashlights @ Legit Reviews
• Instant Recovery / Snapshot Software Review and Guide: Rollback RX @ Tweaktown

Deal for Apr 29 - Two Dell P2213 22" 16:10 Monitors with Stand @ $297

Subject: General Tech | April 29, 2013 - 03:15 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: deals

If you want to set up dual monitors with as little fuss as possible and not spend too much doing it then today's deal might be just the thing for you.  At just under $300 you get two 22" 1680 x 1050 TN displays plus a stand to ensure that they are level with each other, something that can be difficult to accomplish without a stand.

L4D2 Beta Coming to Steam For Linux This Week

Subject: General Tech | April 29, 2013 - 07:25 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: valve, steam for linux, steam, pc gaming, linux, l4d2, beta

Users of Valve’s Steam for Linux client will be getting access to the beta version of Left 4 Dead 2 later this week. The L4D2 beta will come with the new Enhanced Mutation System (EMS), which adds advanced scripting options to the multiplayer zombie survival game.

In fact, all Left 4 Dead owners will get access to the new beta release via the Steam client (not just the Linux platform) for free. The beta will appear in the all games list as a separate download from the main Left 4 Dead 2 game. It will allow beta players to connect to beta servers and other L4D2 beta users.

The EMS system is the biggest addition to the beta currently. It gives developers access to custom script logic as well as custom spawn points and control entities. New maps, characters, and weapons are beyond the scope of the EMS, however.

Interested gamers should keep an eye on their Steam games list as well as the Left 4 Dead blog.

Additional Google Glass Specifications Discovered By Developer

Subject: General Tech | April 27, 2013 - 08:42 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: wearable computing, ti omap, omap 4430, google glasses, android 4.0.4, Android

Earlier this month, Google announced some of the key specifications of its Google Glass project. However, the company left out just how much RAM the device would have or what the exact System on a Chip (SoC) would power the Android device.

Now that the Google Glass glasses are making their way to developers, those as-yet-unknown details are fairly-certain. Google Glass developer Jay Lee managed to access the device using ADB and discovered that the device offered up 682MB of RAM (accessible to developers) and a Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 SoC. Google Glass likely has 1GB of total RAM, but the operating system and other necessary device-level processes are likely responsible for reserving the remaining 342MB chunk of RAM. The TI OMAP 4430 is the same SoC that is powering the Amazon Kindle Fire and a number of other mobile devices released last year. Because of battery life constraints, Google is most likely not running the chip at its maximum 1GHz clock speed. In the Google+ discussion, developer Kevin Fitch speculated that it is likely clocked at 600MHz due to the cores’ BogoMIPS scores.

The remaining Google Glass specifications include Android 4.0.4 (Ice Cream sandwich), 16GB of internal storage, a 5MP camera, and support for both 802.11g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It is essentially a mid-range smartphone hidden away inside a pair of glasses. At $1500, the first round of Google Glass was solely for developers, but once Google rolls it into production next year, judging by the internals, it should be much cheaper.

Are you excited for Google Glass? If you are curious about the software or hardware, Jay Lee is taking questions on his Google + thread.

Deal for Apr 25th - Dell UltraSharp U2410 24" IPS @ $405

Subject: General Tech | April 26, 2013 - 01:27 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: deals

If you are shopping around for a 24" IPS LCD then today's deal might be custom made for you. The Dell UltraSharp U2410 24" IPS is currently discounted by 26% and comes with free shipping. It is a full 1920x1200 display with HDMI, DVI-D and DisplayPort inputs and even better it has a ghosting time of 11 ms and an input lag so low as to be undetectable which makes it perfect for gaming.

Dell UltraSharp U2410 24" IPS-panel LCD Monitor with HDMI & DisplayPort
Dell is offering UltraSharp U2410 24-inch LCD Monitor for $404.99 with FREE shipping. Use $99.01 instant savings and extra 10% coupon code: 0Q0C74SWNZC42$ to get final price.

Only 346 days to go ... where will you be when WinXP dies?

Subject: General Tech | April 26, 2013 - 01:23 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: winxp, microsoft

In just under a year the venerable Windows XP OS will hit end of life and will no longer be supported by Microsoft.  This could be a rather unpleasant experience for many businesses that still rely on WinXP to provide compatibility for legacy applications.  Windows 7 is becoming more difficult to acquire, with Microsoft pushing Win8 as their preferred product to sell with systems and introducing Win7 to executives is daunting enough without trying to explain why their Win8 computer now looks more like a cell phone.  That is bad enough, but explaining to them why a custom built peice of software will no longer function due to incompatibility will be even worse and pointing out that the issue could have been prevented if they had only approved your budget requests to upgrade the software will be less than helpful.  Your younger users will never notice, they are far more concerned with convincing someone that they should be allowed to work on whatever device is their current favourite but you can be guaranteed you will be spending time with upper management explaining why Microsoft doesn't care that they don't want to switch OSes and that due to security agreements with clients those managers have no choice but to upgrade.  The Register put together some numbers showing how unprepared the UK market is; the situation in North America will be similar.

"The lack of a business case was cited as the key barrier to Windows XP application migration in 79 per cent of these organisations. This is why large volumes of unsupported applications post-Windows XP are a concern for 80 per cent of CIOs and IT leaders."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• Mutant hybrid upstart joins pushback against storage giants @ The Register
• Intel presents its Future Showcase for KitGuru
• Tenda W300M Wireless N300 Portable AP/Router @ Kitguru
• HWBOT TeamCup 2013 Stage 4 @ Madshrimps
• Win One of Five Antec Mobile Product Bundles @ eTeknix
• Win 'The Showdown Effect' Game Codes @ eTeknix

Razer takes a moment to Vent, announces Razer Comms

Subject: General Tech | April 26, 2013 - 02:46 AM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: razer, Comms, Teamspeak, Ventrillo

The Steam overlay makes text communication easy between any combination of friends in game and out. Despite the popularity, just about every team has a voice over IP (VoIP) solution to coordinate within a match. Talking is simply superior to typing while simultaneously attempting to not get yourself killed, crashed, or otherwise not-winning. Teamspeak and Ventrillo are the two most popular solutions for clan voice communication; while both are free applications for clients, some uses require server license fees over and above the actual server cost itself.

Razer found a niche it wanted to fill.

Razer Comms is a free service, currently in beta, for text and audio chat. Using the overlay metaphor, the application tries to be very unobtrusive to the game it rests upon. The service apparently uses good-quality codecs, according to the little hear-say I overheard the last couple of days. They also advertise that the service, since it is not owned by the clans which use it, will hide each user's IP address. While there is very little you can do to someone by knowing their IP address, and most of that could be circumvented by powercycling your modem, it does have some limited advantages.

In terms of a business model, unless the service develops some way of gaining revenue, the only way I can rationalize Razer funding this project is boosting their brand power. Razer already has some level of infrastructure from their Synapse projects and it is possible that the company is willing to eat the loss with the expectation of increased hardware sales. If this service will continue to be both free and ad-free, I cannot see any other reason for Razer to bother besides: eat the loss, make gamers happy, and wait for them to want a new mouse or tablet.

I can also see a slim chance, a very very slim chance, that Razer hopes to contiuously expand this service into a full gaming platform as Valve did with Steam. A fun thought, but nothing I would actually expect at this point.

Razer Comms is currently only available for English Windows users, although other languages will arrive soon.

Can 3,000,000 Surface buyers be wrong?

Subject: General Tech | April 25, 2013 - 02:43 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: winRT, win8, surface, microsoft, sales, Surface Pro

Believe it or not, according to The Inquirer's sources Microsoft managed to sell three million Surface and Surface Pro tablets, accounting for 7.5% of sales in the first quarter of 2013.  In comparison Apple accounts for a hair under 50% of branded tablet sales, with Android tablets making up the rest of the market.  For a company not generally associated with hardware, apart from the Zune, Microsoft has made a definite impact on tablet sales with their new OS and hybrid machines.  They do not define the split between Surface and Surface Pro, nor mention how many buyers did not realize the limitations of WinRT, regardless this is good news for Microsoft if not for some of their traditional partners such as ASUS and Acer.

"TABLET UPSTART Microsoft managed to capture 7.5 percent of the global 'branded' tablet market in the first three months of the year."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• Fusion-io buys NexGen @ The Register
• Microsoft to unveil new Xbox console on May 21 @ The Register
• Western Digital profits down despite revenue rise @ The Register
• MySQL Founders Reunite To Form SkySQL @ Slashdot
• Another blow for Flash as Unity gaming engine kills support @ The Register
• SECTOR Pilot Master R3273679025 Review @ NikKTech
• Sony NEX-VG30 @ Hardware.info
• Ninjalane Podcast - The Tech of Concerts

Podcast #248 - AMD HD 7990, CrossFire Frame Rating improvements, 4K TVs and more!

Subject: General Tech | April 25, 2013 - 02:13 PM | Ken Addison
Tagged: video, Xe, seiki, raidr, podcast, nvidia, Never Serttle, hd 7990, GA-Z77N-WiFi, frame rating, crossfire, amd, 4k

PC Perspective Podcast #248 - 04/25/2013

Join us this week as we discuss AMD HD 7990, CrossFire Frame Rating improvements, 4K TVs and more!

You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE.

The URL for the podcast is: http://pcper.com/podcast - Share with your friends!

• iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
• RSS - Subscribe through your regular RSS reader
• MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file

Hosts: Ryan Shrout, Jeremy Hellstrom, Josh Walrath, and Allyn Malventano

Program length: 1:16:34

1. 0:01:20 Update on Indiegogo: You guys rock!
2. Week in Review:
   1. 0:06:30 AMD Radeon HD 7990 6GB Review
   2. 0:15:30 Frame Rating: AMD previews prototype driver
   3. 0:27:30 Gigabyte Z77N-WiFi Mini ITX Motherboard
   4. 0:29:30 AMD Releases Latest Generation of G-series Embedded Products
3. News items of interest:
   1. 0:37:40 Seiki 50-in 4K 3840x2160 TV Preview
   2. 0:48:45 ASUS RAIDR Teases keep happening
   3. 0:52:00 Western Digital Xe HDDs SAS
      1. WD mobile Blue Series 5mm thin
   4. 0:57:15 Hook Retina display up to your PC
   5. 0:59:00 Raja Koduri returns to AMD
   6. 1:01:30 More Never Settle games??
   7. 1:02:45 Sound Blaster still a thing?
4. Hardware/Software Picks of the Week:
   1. Ryan: Seiki 4K TV - more support from enthusiasts! and wet puppies
   2. Jeremy: This is not news people, NFC is a feature but if you are paranoid you can check with this app
   3. Josh: The hoarder in me wants one!
   4. Allyn: Put your bits on an ioSafe. Put your 'papers' here.
   5. Tim: BT Sync, it's in public alpha now so go grab it!
5. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
6. http://pcper.com/podcast
7. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
8. Closing/outro

Deal for April 25th - Dell UltraSharp U2913WM 29" 2560 x 1080 @ $495

Subject: General Tech | April 25, 2013 - 02:11 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: deals

Today only you can get your hands on the Dell UltraSharp U2913WM we featured back on the 19th at an even lower price.  For a total of $495, shipping is free, you can upgrade your display significantly.  Before you sneer at the 2560 x 1080 resolution, realize that you would be able to run multiples of this monitor without needing a triple TITAN SLI rig.  For those of us who's eyes have been around the sun many dozens of times, the slightly larger resolution is also welcome.

Dell UltraSharp U2913WM panoramic 29" 2560 x 1080 LED-backlit LCD Monitor
Dell Works is offering 29-inch UltraSharp U2913WM 2560 x 1080 LED-backlit LCD Monitor for $494.99 with FREE shipping. Use $150 instant savings and extra 10% coupon code: 0Q0C74SWNZC42$ to get final price. Backed by 3-year Advanced Exchange Warranty and Premium Panel Guarantee.

Insync Extending Support for 0.9.x Versions As it Improves The Upgrade Process To Its New 1.0 Client

Subject: General Tech | April 25, 2013 - 10:00 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: insync, google drive, file sync, cloud storage

Insync -- a service that extends the functionality of Google Drive and (among other things) allows users to sync Google Drive files (and documents) with their local computer for offline access -- has announced that it is extending support for version 0.9.x clients due to users expressing concerns over upgrade issues. The company released a new version 1.0 desktop client last month that added a number of new features, and the older clients were scheduled for end-of-life support.

Unfortunately, in order to upgrade to the new Insync 1.0, users needed to re-download all of their files stored on Google Drive. In an email to users, Insync sympathized with users' concerns over needing to re-download all files (especially those with extensive libraries of files and/or low data caps) of their files simply to upgrade the client-side application.

Insync has announced that it is working on a solution that will allow users to upgrade to the new (and improved) client without needing to re-download files from Google Drive, which is currently necessary to bring the client in sync with the cloud storage service. There is no ETA on the new client, but the company is reportedly hard at work on fixing the issue.

In the meantime, users can continue using their current desktop clients without worrying about file sync and tech support ending.

ARM Details First Quarter 2013 Finances, Company Revenue Up 26% YoY

Subject: General Tech | April 25, 2013 - 01:14 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: SoC, mobile, ARMv8, arm

British chip design company ARM recently released an unaudited financial report with details on its Q1 2013 performance. The mobile SoC giant announced that it saw 2.6 million ARM chips in the first quarter of this year, a 35% improvement over last year and further evidence that ARM still dominates the low-power mobile market.

In fact, the chip designer made $94.9 million in licensing all those ARM chips, which was a big chunk of the company’s total Q1 2013 revenue of $263.9 million. Revenue was up by 26% versus the first quarter of the previous year (Q1 2012), which was only $209.4 million. Further, ARM’s profit (pre-tax) is 89.4 million pounds or approximately $137 million USD.

ARM saw revenue from both licensing and royalties increase year over year (YoY) by 24% and 33% which indicates that more companies are jumping into the mobile and embedded markets with ARM chips or licenses to make custom designs of their own. According to the report, the company sold five-times more Mali GPUs, saw a 50% increase in ARM-powered embedded devices, and noticed a 25% increase in ARM mobile devices year over year respectively. ARM has also started moving ARMv8 (64-bit ARM) licenses. Of the total 22 licenses in Q1 2013, 7 of the licenses were for ARM’s Cortex-A50 series processors along with a single ARMv8 license (a total of 9 to date). In Q1 2013, ARM also sold three Mali GPU licenses, and one of those was for the company’s high-end Skymir GPU.

In all, ARM had a good first quarter and is showing signs of increased growth. With ARMv8 on the horizon, I am interested to see the company’s numbers next year and how they compare year over year as ARM attempts to take over the server room in particular. The profits and revenue are modest in comparison to X86 giant Intel's Q1 2013 results, but are not bad at all for a company that doesn’t produce chips itself!

You can find ARM's Q1 2013 report here.

AMD Catalyst 13.4 (WHQL) and AMD Catalyst 13.5 Beta

Subject: General Tech | April 24, 2013 - 05:27 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: catalyst, graphics drivers, catalyst 13.4, Catalyst 13.5 beta

AMD Catalyst 13.4 includes all of the latest performance optimizations and fixes available in AMD Catalyst 13.3 Beta 3, and is Microsoft logo certified.

AMD Catalyst 13.5 Beta includes additional performance improvements and fixes not found in AMD Catalyst 13.4

Feature Highlights of AMD Catalyst™ 13.4
Includes support for the for the AMD Radeon HD 7990 Series and AMD Radeon HD 7790 Series

AMD Catalyst 13.4 includes support for the following OpenGL 4.3 features:

• GL_ARB_compute_shader o GL_ARB_multi_draw_indirect
• GL_ARB_shader_storage_buffer_object o GL_ARB_arrays_of_arrays
• GL_ARB_clear_buffer_object o GL_ARB_ES3_compatibility
• GL_ARB_explicit_uniform_location o GL_ARB_fragment_layer_viewport
• GL_ARB_invalidate_subdata o GL_ARB_program_interface_query
• GL_ARB_shader_image_size o GL_ARB_stencil_texturing
• GL_ARB_texture_buffer_range o GL_ARB_texture_query_levels
• GL_ARB_texture_storage_multisample

Performance Highlights of AMD Catalyst 13.4 (vs. AMD Catalyst 13.1): Includes all of the performance improvements found in AMD Catalyst 13.3 Beta 3 on the AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series

• Resolved issue highlights of AMD Catalyst 13.4 (vs. AMD Catalyst 13.1) AMD Catalyst 13.4 includes all of the fixes found in AMD Catalyst 13.3 Beta 3
• Significantly improves latency performance in Skyrim, Boderlands 2, Guild Wars 2,Tomb Raider and Hitman Absolution
• Resolves Texture flickering seen in DirectX9.0c applications.
• Resolves slight corruption seen in Tomb Raider with TressFX enabled for CrossFire and single GPU configurations
• Fixes graphical corruption on objects and textures in Call of Duty - Black Ops 2

AMD’s latest Catalyst Application Profile:

AMD Catalyst 13.4 CAP1 (Can be used with AMD Catalyst 13.4 and AMD Catalyst 13.5 Beta – note, the CrossFire profiles are already included in AMD Catalyst 13.5 Beta )

AMD Catalyst Application Profiles include support for AMD single GPU, AMD CrossFire, AMD Dual Graphics, and AMD Enduro Technology configurations

• The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct: Fixes image quality issues when enabling Anti-Aliasing through the AMD Catalyst Control Center
• Crysis 3: Improves CrossFire performance in 3 and 4 GPU configurations
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution: Improves CrossFire performance
• Unigine Heaven: Improves CrossFire performance in 3 and 4 GPU configurations ·
• Hitman Absolution: Resolves application issues when running application at 1680x100 with 8xAA enabled

AMD Enduro Technology profile updates:

• Alien Colonial Marines – acm.exe
• BioShock Infinite – BioShockInfinite.exe
• Crysis 3 – Crysis3.exe
• GodMode – GodMode.exe
• Grid 2 – grid2.exe
• Hawken – HawkenLauncher.exe
• Neverwinter – gameclient.exe
• SimCity – SimCity.exe
• Sniper Elite Nazi Zombie Army – NZA.exe
• The Walking Dead Survival Instinct – WalkingDead.exe
• Tomb Raider – TombRaider.exe
• Kapersky Anti-virus - avt.exe

The latest available AMD Catalyst CAP can always be found here:

http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/Pages/crossfirex-app-profiles.aspx

Feature Highlights of AMD Catalyst™ 13.4 Linux Driver:

This release of AMD Catalyst™ Linux introduces support for the following new features: RHEL 6.4 production support OpenCL console mode support Kernel 3.7 and 3.8 support

AMD Catalyst™ 13.5 Beta high-lights (vs. AMD Catalyst 13.4/AMD Catalyst 13.3 Beta) on the AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series.

Download the driver here: http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/AMDCatalyst13-5WINBetaDriver.aspx

· AMD Catalyst 13.5 Beta Includes support for the for the AMD Radeon HD 7990 Series and AMD Radeon HD 7790 Series

Resolved Issues: · Tomb Raider: Corruption is no longer seen on the AMD Radeon HD 7790 when Tress FX is enabled